Page 167 of Echoes of Us

“I have to get out of here. I need to leave.” I swallowed thickly and moved away from him. I rubbed my hands on my face and left the room, dropping his phone on the floor as I did.

“No, Atty. Don’t go, please don’t go.” He held me by my shirt.

“I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe in here. I have to go.” I tried to get his hands off me, but he kept grasping, holding me back forcefully.

“Please, Atty, please,” he begged.

I’d barely made it out of his room when Noah stopped me. I pressed my hands on the wall, and he wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Please don’t go.”

“Noah, let me leave.” I stepped towards the door again, but he held on firmly.

“Please look at me.” He pushed on my arms and tried to move me.

“No.”

He still managed to turn me around, holding my face and forcing me to look down at him. His eyes were red too. They looked greener like that, brighter.

“Please don’t leave.” He tugged on my arms, trying to get me back in the bedroom.

“I can’t keep doing this. I can’t,” I said, but he kept pulling, and my body acted on its own, following him.

He sat me on the bed and climbed on my lap, his arms tight around my neck. He started kissing the side of my face, my cheek, below my ear, my jaw. I even felt his soft lips over my closed eyelids.

“I love you so much, Atty. Please don’t leave. Please, I can’t do this without you. I can’t lose you.”

I placed my hands on his waist and tried to push him back, but he just tightened his hold. “I can’t breathe,” I said.

He kissed me, his lips pressing on mine urgently.

“I won’t make it if I lose you too,” he said against my lips.

I felt a whole new wave of pain. I didn’t know how to hold him anymore. I couldn’t keep helping him. He was breaking me too.

This was it. I was going to lose my Noah.

I kissed him back, and he parted his lips. The all-too-familiar urgency took over us. Noah tugged at my clothes, getting them off, and I helped him with his. He pressed on my shoulders, pushing me down on the bed and reaching into his bedside table. He didn’t bother with a condom or even work himself open. He just got the lube on me, taking less than two strokes to get me hard, and sat. He winced, but he didn’t stop until his hips were over mine.

He started rocking his hips and leaned down, kissing me. I felt the cold chain on my chest as he moved and wrapped my arms around his waist, helping us get into the rhythm. It was raw and intense, nothing like sex had ever been between us.

When we finished, I felt empty.

I lay on my stomach, half-leaning out of the bed, with Noah resting his chest over me. He ran his hand over my back slowly, saying the same thing over and over again like a mantra, flooding my brain and numbing the ache in my heart.

“I’m going to make it better.”

Music bloomed as I approached the elevator. I pulled off my headphones to make sure I was hearing right. Noah was in the kitchen, half-dancing in his boxers. After our fight last night, we hadn’t said a word to each other before falling asleep. When I woke up, he was still sleeping. I debated waking him up, thinking we needed to talk. Instead, I decided on a run, and now there was music in the apartment. Noah looked up and smiled at me, his expression like sunlight after weeks in the dark.

“Hey,” I said tentatively.

“Hey, Atty,” he replied brightly.

I sat on the stool, watching him fiddle with things in the kitchen. Noah barely knew how to make scrambled eggs and toast, but today he had tried. Pancakes, eggs, and bacon were on the stove. Glancing around, I noticed he had cleaned up all the evidence from last night. The floor was spotless, and there were no empty beer bottles in sight.

“What is all this?”

“I wanted to do something nice for you.” He shrugged.

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